Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

is an opponent of

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ...

(ISIL), fighting the group in Syria and

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

Iran's military action against ISIL

In Syria

Since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Iran is supporting the Syrian government against its opponents, including ISIL.

In Iraq

was the first country to pledge assistance to Iraq to fight ISIL, deploying troops in early June 2014 following the North Iraq offensive.

President of Iraq The president of Iraq is the head of state of Iraq and "safeguards the commitment to the Constitution and the preservation of Iraq's independence, sovereignty, unity, the security of its territories in accordance with the provisions of the Con ...

Fuad Masum Muhammad Fuad Masum ( ar, محمد فؤاد معصوم هورامي, translit=Muḥammad Fū’ād Ma‘ṣūm; , born 1 January 1938) is an Iraqi Kurdish politician who served as the seventh president of Iraq from 24 July 2014 to 2 October 2018. ...

has praised Iran as "the first country to provide weapons to Iraq to fight against the ISIL Takfiri terrorists". Iran's

Quds Force The Quds Force ( fa, نیروی قدس, niru-ye qods, Jerusalem Force) is one of five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) specializing in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations. U.S. Army's Iraq War ...

is a "key player" in the

military intervention against ISIL In response to rapid territorial gains made by the so-called Islamic State during the first half of 2014, and its universally condemned executions, reported human rights abuses and the fear of further spillovers of the Syrian Civil War, many s ...

and its "mastermind" commander Major General

Qassem Soleimani Qasem Soleimani ( fa, قاسم سلیمانی, ; 11 March 19573January 2020) was an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). From 1998 until his assassination in 2020, he was the commander of the Quds F ...

maintained a frequent presence in Iraq while his pictures in the battlefield were regularly published.

Iran–Iraq border

In 14 March 2016, two ISIL cells equipped with explosive devices were eliminated near the border by the

Ground Forces of Islamic Republic of Iran Army The Islamic Republic of Iran Army Ground Forces ( fa, نیروی زمینی ارتش جمهوری اسلامی ایران, ''Niroo-ye Zamini-ye Artesh-e Jomhuri-ye Eslâmi-ye Iran''), acronymed NEZAJA ( fa, نزاجا, NEZEJA) are the ground forc ...

Iran's political stance

Foreign Affairs Minister of Iran Javad Zarif has described ISIL as an "

ideological An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied prim ...

sibling" to Al-Qaeda, adding "the so-called Islamic State, is neither Islamic nor a

state State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

Supreme Leader of Iran The Supreme Leader of Iran ( fa, رهبر ایران, rahbar-e irān) is the head of state of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Supreme Leader directs the executive system and judicial system of the Islamic theocratic government and is the co ...

Ali Khamenei has openly commented on the American-led intervention in Iraq and the

Combined Joint Task Force Combined may refer to: * Alpine combined (skiing), the combination of slalom and downhill skiing as a single event ** Super combined (skiing) * Nordic combined (skiing), the combination of cross country skiing and ski jumping as a single event * T ...

Designation as "terrorist"

Iranian official and semi-official media outlets such as

-run '' Iran Daily'', and

IRGC The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC; fa, سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی, Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enghelāb-e Eslāmi, lit=Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution also Sepāh or Pasdaran for short) is a branch o ...

-tied news agencies '' Fars'' and '' Tasnim'' frequently call ISIL as "

terrorist organization A number of national governments and two international organizations have created lists of organizations that they designate as terrorist. The following list of designated terrorist groups lists groups designated as terrorist by current and fo ...

" and "

Takfiri ''Takfiri'' ( ar, تَكْفِيرِيّ, ' lit. "excommunicational") is an Arabic and Islamic term denoting a Muslim who excommunicates one of his/her coreligionists, i.e. who accuses another Muslim of being an apostate. Since according to t ...

". The deputy secretary of Supreme National Security Council has also called it "

terrorist group A number of national governments and two international organizations have created lists of organizations that they designate as terrorist. The following list of designated terrorist groups lists groups designated as terrorist by current and fo ...

ISIL's threats to Iran

While Iran is a Shia-dominant country, ISIL is ideologically anti-

Shia Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, mo ...

and regards Shias as infidels, having killed thousands of them. After rapidly expanding in Iraq, ISIL became a threat only kilometers away from Iranian western borders. With the Pakistan-based Sunni Jihadist groups in eastern Iran and an ongoing

Sistan and Baluchestan insurgency The Sistan and Baluchestan insurgency, part of the Balochistan conflict, began approximately in 2004 and is an ongoing low-intensity asymmetric conflict in Sistan and Baluchestan Province between Iran and several Baloch Sunni militant orga ...

, some alarmed the possibility of a wider backlash there. Iran threatened ISIL that managing to attack

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...

or holy shrines of

Shia Imams In Shia Islam, the Imamah ( ar, إمامة) is a doctrine which asserts that certain individuals from the lineage of the Islamic prophet Muhammad are to be accepted as leaders and guides of the ummah after the death of Muhammad. Imamah further ...

and getting close to Iran-Iraq border is "over the red lines" and if they are crossed, Iran will engage in a direct action. In September 2014, Iranian paper '' Islamic Republican'' quoted ''Hadana news'' reporting "ISIL designated Emir for Iran and several of his aides were arrested by security bodies". The report did not name the Emir, and did not say if they had been able to sneak into Iran or arrested abroad. Neither did it mention the security bodies of which country have made the arrest. In the same month,

Minister of Interior An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergenc ...

Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli announced Iran has arrested several suspected members of ISIL trying to enter Iran. He said that two or three of them have confessed "entering Iran has been among the plans of the ISIL" and dismissed the reports on the ISIL move to recruit members inside Iran, despite noting "this does not mean that the group has not launched a publicity campaign for recruitment". On 29 January 2015, ISIL announced a new province called ''Wilayat Khorasan'' consisting of

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

, and "other nearby lands".

Hafiz Saeed Khan Hafiz Saeed Khan (1972 – 26 July 2016), also known as Mullah Saeed Orakzai, was an Islamic militant who served as the Islamic State emir for its Khorasan province, which is active in Afghanistan and Pakistan, from January 2015 until his deat ...

was designated as Emir of the province. Pakistani Hafiz Saeed Khan, also known as Mulla Saeed Orakzai, is a former member of the

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...

. On 7 June 2017, ISIL claimed responsibility for an attack on the Iranian Parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini. The attack was confirmed to have left 16 dead and was the first instance of an ISIL attack within Iran's borders. There are worries about the implications of this attack on President Hassan Rouhani's "moderation project".

Iranian citizens and ISIL

Tehran Bureau Tehran Bureau is an online news magazine covering politics, foreign affairs, culture and society in Iran and the Iranian Diaspora. It was founded by Iranian-born journalist Kelly Golnoush Niknejad in February 2008, initially as a blog. In May 200 ...

'' reports a popular support on Iran's military action against ISIL. According to ''

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...

'', as of January 2015 "hundreds" of Iranian Sunni Kurds have crossed the Iran-Iraq border to fight ISIL, mostly joining

Iraqi Kurdistan Iraqi Kurdistan or Southern Kurdistan ( ku, باشووری کوردستان, Başûrê Kurdistanê) refers to the Kurdish-populated part of northern Iraq. It is considered one of the four parts of "Kurdistan" in Western Asia, which also inc ...

fighters also known as

Peshmerga The Peshmerga ( ku, پێشمەرگه, Pêşmerge, lit=those who face death) is the Kurdish military forces of the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq. According to the Constitution of Iraq, the Peshmerga, along with their security subsidiaries, ...

. Several research works and polls conducted by a security body in Iran have shown that Iran's Sunni community "are not interested in membership in the ISIL". However, Erbil-based website Rudaw cites a

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

post from the One ISIL page saying that in October 2014, 23 Kurds from Iran had joined the group. Kurdish activist Mokhtar Hoshmand has claimed "20 Iranian Kurdish members of ISIL have been killed and 30 have been injured".

References

{{portalbar, Iran Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Iran Iranian involvement in the Syrian civil war Islamism_in_Iran